Even though I just did a giveaway, I am leaping on the back of that Ninja Mug post, to do a special holiday giveaway. I want to make sure I can pick a name (or more accurately, my sons can) and get the prize to the winner before Xmas. I’m all festive like that and shit.

Anyway, this prize is actually a multitude of Xmas items that I thought might be coveted by all y’all. Here they are:

.

.

.

.

As you can plainly see, this prize is full of win. The mini martini set is from Williams Sonoma, the Christmas Story stuff consists of a Leg Lamp stress ball, 2 pens that display different messages when you click them, and a note pad. And the magnet is just made of pure awesome, obviously. (I may even throw in a few other items, as I keep buying fun stuff during my holiday shopping craze, and I can’t not give stuff away. It’s a sickness, really).

So, any takers? Anyone? Here’s your mission, should you accept . . . tell me a story. A Christmas Story, if you will. (See what I did there?). Tell me a story about something that happened to you during the holidays (Christmas and/or Hanukkah) that was truly wacky, crazy, ridiculous or cringe-worthy. Did your Aunt Clara send you a big pink bunny suit? Did your friend stick his tongue to a frozen metal pole? Did the neighborhood dogs eat up your Christmas day feast? Did you shoot your eye out?

Do not fear if the commenter ahead of you has provided a more creative or crazy story than yours. I have once again relinquished control (and all of that pressure!) of picking the winner, to my young elves. I will enlist their picking talents this weekend (why does that sound so wrong?), so get to commenting! Share away . . . and may the odds be evah in your favor!

———————————————————————————————————————

On to other holiday related news . . . if you are a long time reader of this here blog, you might remember last year around this time I asked for people to send me their addresses. No, not for stalking purposes. Pfft, like I have time for that! No no no. I wanted addresses so I could send out Christmas cards! Although I am a self proclaimed Scrooge, the one thing I actually love to do is send cards to people. I do this all year round for birthdays, thank yous, or just because. If you know me at all, and I consider you a friend, you have probably received a card from me at some point. So, when the holidays roll around, I hunker down with a pile of cards, stamps, return labels and addresses and just send send send all that holiday cheer! (In fact, I am so damn good, that I’ve already sent my international peeps their cards. Be jealous).

So with that in mind . . . if you would like to receive some of my holiday cheer (sorry, the post office frowns on sending bottles of booze in Xmas cards) by way of a Xmas card (or just a holiday card for my Jewish friends), please email me at: mistySlaws@gmail.com (that S in the middle is important, so don’t forget it). I will send you out a lovely holiday greeting.

I need your addresses in the next week so that I can get them out to everyone. And if I sent you a card last year (or have sent you anything in the last year since) just assume I have your address and leave me a comment below that you would like a card (or not, you are probably gonna get one anyway). :p However, if you have moved in the last year, please send me your new address. I’m looking at you Dani, Mandi, Carrie, Noa, etc. You know who you are. You can’t hide from me!!

Share this:

Like this:

Related

Okay, so, don’t enter me in the drawing, but I can’t NOT share this story…

When I was a kid still living in Indiana – I must have been 8 or 9 – we were hanging out in the den of my grandparents house. The Christmas decorations had just come out of the cellar and we were sorting through the box, checking to make sure everything worked. Among the items was a Rudolph toy that walked and sang carols and turned his head and his nose lit up when you turned him on. There were no batteries in him though, so we sat him on the sofa table and went through the rest of the boxes.

During all of this, there was an unseasonal thunderstorm going on and lightning struck very close to the house. And the Rudolph without batteries started walking and lighting up, and singing in a very children of the corn manner. We threw him away as soon as he walked off the edge of the sofa table and went still.

You are soooo good with the cards, and always find the best swag!! I’m still trying to figure out if I’ll have my act together ‘enough’ to send cards this year… If I can get the winners their sheet sets by Christmas, I’ll call it a win (I’m cutting it close, but that was the plan)!

My favorite Christmas story is the time, when I was 16, I went to my boss’ Christmas Eve party, and showed up at the neighbor’s house. They were having a party, too, and it was at least 5 minutes before anyone noticed. What first clued me, besides NOT KNOWING ANYONE, in was when someone asked if I was a nurse.

Christmas stories? I’ve been the lucky recipient of a Misty prize before, so I won’t enter the contest, but I will give you a story. This one may sound bad, but we joke about it now. About a dozen years ago, my dad had surgery to remove bone spurs and straighten his nasal passageways, around mid-December. Christmas day we drove to my grandparents in Houston, opened gifts, ate dinner, and blah blah blah. That afternoon we were getting ready to leave, and my sister, mom and I were outside, along with all our relatives, saying our goodbyes. Several minutes passed, and my dad still hadn’t come outside, so everyone repeated the goodbye process again (hugs and all that). After a couple more minutes, we began to wonder where my dad was, and almost everyone started making jokes, “Oh, he’s probably inside eating another piece of pie”, etc.

One of my uncles went inside to see what the deal was, and heard my dad weakly calling for help in the bathroom. He had sneezed and busted his sutures, and his nose had been gushing blood like a geyser the entire time we were outside. It was awful, the entire floor was covered in blood, and he was rushed to the hospital. A few hours later when he could have visitors, a handful of us walked into his room, and the first thing he said in a verrrrrrrrrry sedated voice was, “I look like a stuffed pig.”

Ok, I’ll bite on this contest because I was just telling my kids what a strange egg(nog) I was when I was a kid. When we got together with my cousins at Christmas time, had I anticipated better, I would have been doing my kiegels 3 months leading up to the event. Alas, I was 8 or 9 and knew nothing of said solution.

Ok, so back to my cousins. Either THEY were really funny (like the funniest people in the world) or I was the funny one…I can’t say for sure, but I kept peeing my pants from laughing. That’s true holiday spirit right there.

But the story goes on, because how exactly do you ADMIT to such things without making everyone ELSE pee their pants laughing at you? Exactly. I saved them the humiliation and kept it to myself. However, this meant that I had to devise a holiday cover-up plan.

(You may be thinking Santa or elf costume cover-up here, and though I agree it is a brilliant idea, I was only 9 years old and had not yet come into my full holiday-brilliance.)

Instead, I stashed my panties. Yep. Couldn’t find a good use for the wet ones, so I found a good hiding place for them to dry out. Not the laundry room, unfortunately, where my mistake had the chance of being *mistaken* for something else. No…it wasn’t until about a year later that…

My aunt returned my panties to my mom. “Are these Misty’s?” she said. (Yep. Same great name here.) I’m sure her first instict was also denial, however, upon closer inspection, there was no denying that the Monday, Thursday, and Saturday pair had not yet been passed down to my younger cousins but were indeed: mine.

“Where did you find them?” Yep. Gasp. She asked.

“Inside the bathroom cabinet in the basement bathroom…way back behind the plunger. Do you have any ideas how they got there?”

” Nope. No idea.”

THE dry END.

P.S. Yes, this story started out by my saying I was telling my kids what their mother had done as a child. Also, they need to know why I’m packing 20 pairs of undies each , so…

Oh man. If someone showed me a pair of my daughter’s (I don’t have a daughter) underwear hidden in a deep crevice, I imagine that my mind would have gone to some very dark places, and would probably be seeking out some male family members for a heated interrogation discussion. Yikes!

At least now you are always prepared!! Your kids are gonna turn out awesome because of your warnings stories.

First off, great swag! You always find the coolest trinkets for your giveaways, Misty.

Desite the annual tradition of our family wishing each other a “Merry f@#$%in’ Christmas,” it has now become a custom to receive some of my brother’s saliva. A few years ago, I playfully squirted my brother with silver glitter hairspray to him in the holiday spirit. Everyone likes a little sparkle, right? Wrong. He vowed to get me back and before we parted ways, I was tackled to the ground while he proceeded to drool into.my.ear. My mother nearly wet her pants from the hilarity of it and the family dog did nothing to help me out of my brother’s vice-like grip that refused to allow me to move my arms to dry my ear. The next year, thinking I was safe (I left my glitter hairspray at home), I was met with a very wet tongue in my ear. No, it wasn’t from the dog.

And so, a new tradition was born in our family. Whether I receive drool in my ear or a tongue lashing on my cheek, it has turned into a very strange holiday activity. One that I would LOVE to see the end of.

Oh wow. That. Is. DISGUSTING. Yikes! At least my brother is just a huge disappointing moron. I am so sorry.

Have you thought about escalating? I’m thinking something epic that will let him know that you are serious when you say “quit that shit.” Because, it doesn’t look like it will end until you do something about it, methinks.

Although, I do appreciate the MERRY FUCKING XMAS tradition. Yes, you may say fuck on my site. I assume that’s what all those characters stood for. 😉

Ok… So, I have a story, but you can’t share it with your kids. But it’s pretty funny and messed up, so I’m gonna share it anyway. Even if I don’t win. Because I love you.

My brother and I were probably about 11&13 or so and we were on the hunt for Xmas presents. After checking most of the house, we decided to dig all the way to the back of our parents’ closet, where we were sure we would find them. Down, down, down we tunneled through the old 70s clothing (including a pair of my dad’s bellbottoms) until we struck gold… It was a bag, wrapped in a bag, inside of a garbage bag. We knew that this was it… So we opened it and found…

Are you fucking kidding me?? My kids do not even know this blog exists. Talk about setting them up for future therapy sessions. Wait, do your kids read your blog? Oh man . . .

Ha! Your parents are brilliant. They probably planted those so you would never look again. At least, that’s what I would hope happened. Otherwise, you would have to start thinking about your parents having sex, and who wants THAT? 😉

Sidenote . . . I found condoms in my dad’s drawer when I was a teenager. Worst moment of my teenaged life!

Love these stories- a compilation would make an excellent gift item for the holidays, methinks.
My strangest holiday memory was undoubtedly from one of my friend’s “misfits” Christmas parties. It ended up being the last of such events, because of the amount of tears that were shed, and expensive furnishings destroyed.
As if misfits Christmas parties don’t already involve ridiculous amounts of booze, most of the attendees were restaurant folk (aka functioning alcoholics.) The setting was in direct contrast to the rag tag group- A huge house with ornate furnishings, and a gorgeous view of the city from the dining room window.
The champagne flowed, and things naturally got weird. I was unfortunately the overly-sober witness to the events, since I had a 40-minute drive to get home, and had cut myself off after two drinks. First, the group clutz spilled red wine all over a newly upholstered chair at dinner, causing the hostess to actually, physically, hyperventilate. We came close to being kicked out of the house right then.
Once the hostess calmed down, she, along with her sister, started interrogating me about myself, clearly sizing me up as a potential future mate for her son. This caused the ex-girlfriend of the hostess’ son to start giving me the evil eye for the rest of the night.
After dinner, my feelings of awkwardness grew, when one of my coworker’s boyfriends started flirting with me in Spanish, while she was sitting next to him, zoned-out drunk, playing with her phone. We were outside on a smoke break; He was so intense I half expected a marriage proposal on the freezing lawn.
Clutz, who had mysteriously vanished from the gathering, suddenly reappeared: In a full, rented, elf costume. She began to distribute presents, but the costume made her even more clumsy. I watched her careening around the very expensive house, glass of red wine in hand, with the image of the hostess’ previous bout of breathlessness still fresh in my mind. I kept an eye on clutz and sure enough she went down on the patio, flinging red wine all over the furniture covers. I was there with a handful of paper towels, attempting futility to cover up her carelessness.
Then the crying stage, the end of any good bout of inappropriate holiday drunkenness: I found them, the hostess, the son, the ex-girlfriend, and my friend with the asshole boyfriend in the living room, beside the Christmas tree, all in tears. Who knows what is was about, cause I was outta there.
This, as I said, was the last misfits Christmas. Have fun at your holiday parties guys, but try not to ruin other people’s nice shit.

Wow, that sounds . . . intense! Then again, if you had been completely shitfaced like everyone else around you, you probably would have been crying and laughing along with the rest of them, and remembered it as one of the most fun nights of your life! Or something.

This one Christmas my dad tried to light up the tree and wound up electrocuting the house, and…oh…no, wait…that was ‘Christmas Vacation’. OH! But this ONE Christmas we had all of our annoying relatives come over and then this guy broke in and tied us all up and…crap…no, that was ‘The Ref’. Wait! Wait! But I totally remember this one Christmas back in the 80’s when we were at this big party in this office building and these German guys broke in with machine guns and then Bruce Willis…oh, shit. I’ve got nothing.

Oh wait . . . don’t you remember LAST Christmas when you thought you weren’t gonna get your most covetted and requested gift, but then your dad (I mean Santa) came through for you in the end . . . and then you almost shot your eye out? Right Ralphie? Deck the horrs . . .

Here’s a story that ties into the post: my dad got me a leg lamp for Christmas about 9-10 years ago. He wrapped it in it’s shipping box and wrote “FRAGILE” across it. He died 7 years ago and every time we move I find that box because I will NEVER EVER throw it away.

I am here because I am unsuccessfully stalking Jen. Our first dog was the beagle from hell that hated me, aka the dog that ate Christmas. We put the tree up and blocked off the room. DTAC did nothing. We waited two days and DTAC was not interested. We put ornaments on the tree and waited another few days. DTAC acted like nothing was different in the house. We put presents out. DTAC climbed on to built in bookshelves, launched herself into the room and ate all of the wrapping paper off of the gifts, most of the ornaments, a box of Frango mints (I know, chocolate), body wash, and coffee. She then got over the barrier to the room and was not feeling well. So she let herself into our bedroom and threw up. On MY pillows.

For Christmas dinner two years ago, I fixed and served venison that my that my family provided. Being from a family of hunters, I asked whose deer it was. Turns out it was the one that ran into my sister’s fiance’s truck, thus, on that fine day in honor of the baby Jesus , we ate roadkill

This isn’t terribly wacky or anything, but six years ago my husband got me a Dyson vacuum cleaner (that was NOT on my list) for Christmas as my special big gift…that was NOT on my list as in didn’t necessarily want one, NOT in a oh my gosh how did you know way! (Maybe I should also mention that about six years earlier I got an Oreck vacuum cleaner…for my 30th birthday!)

No no no no no!! Appliances for gifts are NOT OK. Unless specifically requested. And even then, there better be some jewelry to go along with it. Send him back to husband school!! He needs a refresher course.

Imagine if you will, a family Christmas get together. I had just turned 11. After my Aunt had given out our presents, I got an extra box filled with candy and $30. My siblings threw a fit so my mom intervened, wanting to know why I got something and the other two didn’t. My Aunt looks at her dumbfounded and said “Well, it IS her birthday also. My Mom just stood there with her mouth open. That’s right, it was Christmas Day and my birthday as well. My own mother forgot my birthday. After 10 years, you would think that she would know it better than anyone else. She then ran to her purse and grabbed her checkbook. It was for $35. And I, to this day will never let her live it down =)